The Genesis of the Round Dance – Part 5

Left - Prearchaic dance circle, 9th c. BC. Olympia. Right - 5th-3rd c. BC circle of dancers, with avlos player inside.
Religion and Dance
Many scholars have described dance in terms of religion. Kraus describes it among the ancients as being used “as a means of communication with the forces of nature – for becoming one with the gods,” and as “a major form of religious ritual . . . a means of worship” ((Kraus, Richard G., Sarah Chapman Hilsendager, and Brenda Dixon Gottschild. History of the Dance in Art and Education. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, 19, 28)). Curt Sachs tells us that dance was a way to “bridge the chasm between this and the other world” of the Gods ((qtd. in Ellfeldt, Lois. Dance, from Magic to Art. Dubuque, Iowa: W. C. Brown Co., 1976, 14)). Ellfeldt states that there is no primitive group in the world that does not have a strong ceremonial culture, and very few of these ceremonies that do not have dances associated with them ((ibid., 32)). Why do we not know more about these ritual dances? With the Egyptians, Ellfeldt tells us that it is because of the extreme secrecy “with which the priests guarded their dances . . . transmitting their rules by word of mouth” ((ibid., 55)). These dances were sacred, deeply symbolic rituals which were purposefully kept esoteric, only revealed to those “initiates” which participated in them. [Read more…]